


i’ll be with you when the stars start falling

by sakuvasse



Category: Midnight Special (2016)
Genre: M/M, takes place before the events of the film
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6329869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuvasse/pseuds/sakuvasse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucas never expected Roy Tomlin to come back into his life. At least, not like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i’ll be with you when the stars start falling

Lucas was never much of a believer. Even in the small sliver of time when he still was, he was never particularly active in the church scene, but then, there were only so many accidents one could see—so many good and decent people lost in the grisliest of the ways on the highway—before one stopped believing altogether. These days, Lucas only believed in a handful of things, and alcohol was one of them. It couldn’t block out the horrors completely, but it helped. He pulled his black and white car into the driveway for the night and had settled on his couch with a glass in his hand (and one already down the hatch) when the knocking came, fast and frantic. 

He’d always held distant hope that one day Roy Tomlin would step back into his life, but this was not even close to how he’d pictured it. Roy towered over him now, his hair a mess, chest heaving slightly, as if he’d been running a great distance. A boy was in his arms, clinging around his neck. He didn’t look much older than 8 or 9 but carried himself as a child much older. More puzzling than this was the blue goggles adorning his piercing eyes. Roy’s eyes. He knew those eyes all too well. 

“We’re in trouble,” Roy managed to gasp out, and Lucas had already moved to the side to let them pass. Roy set the boy down, standing in front of him protectively. In all those years they’d known each other, Lucas knew him to be a loyal friend, and protective, but this was almost animalistic. Roy stood in front of him like an animal trapped in the corner of a cage, its teeth bared. 

“They’re trying to take him from me,” is all he would offer, but it was enough to get a reaction out of him. Lucas felt his fists clenching on the hem of his jacket. He knew all too well what that meant.

He set Roy and the boy—who’d introduced himself as Alton—up in his guest room, watching from the doorway as his friend tucked Alton in. Roy spoke in hushed tones, placing a pair of noise-cancelling headphones over the child’s head before hugging him close, and after a few moments he was fast asleep. Lucas waited in the hallway while Roy closed the door behind him.

“I can explain.”

“You damn well better.”

Roy starts to talk, and Lucas listens, but really, all he could think about were those nights spent together in another lifetime. The two of them in Lucas’s truck, Roy’s hand on the back of his head guiding him, fingernails working their way through his hair. Sweet, sticky kisses in the backs of movie theatres, alleyways, the basement of Roy’s house, anywhere they could steal them. And of course, Lucas remembered the way his shoes hit the pavement chasing after the truck that carried Roy away from him and off to the ranch. _I’ll come back to you. I promise._ He’d whispered into Lucas’s neck earlier that morning, sneaking away from his parents for one last shared moment, the two of them groping at each other one last time. After he left, Lucas wrote letter after letter to no response. It was as if Roy never had existed, and all those happy moments with him had been a figment of his imagination. The present caught up with him now, overwhelming (or maybe it was the whiskey) and Lucas stumbled back against the wall. There was a sudden warmth on his shoulder and he looked to see Roy steadying him up.

“Lucas. _Luke_. We need your help.”

Luke. He wanted to laugh. Only Roy had ever gotten away with calling him that when they were children. _But we’re not kids anymore._

“I wrote you. Why didn’t you come find me? I… I never left, Roy. I’ve been here this whole time.” _Worrying myself sick about you. Looking in the windows of every crashed car, praying… hoping that I wouldn’t see you. Not like this._

Roy is silent for what feels like a lifetime. There wasn’t anything he could possibly say—Lucas knew that. It happened. There was no going back now. No matter how badly he wanted to.

“I tried to write you back. I really did.... I didn’t know what to say. And then…”

He gestures to the closed door, where Alton sleeps. Lucas closes his eyes.

“He’s meant for something great, Lucas. I won’t let them use him anymore. ”

Roy’s hand moves from Lucas’s shoulder and down his arm until their fingers rest next to each other, barely touching. It took everything he had to not bridge that gap.

“I understand, Roy.”

And he meant it. He’d never had children, or a family outside of his parents while they were still alive. He was solitary by choice, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how it felt to love someone completely, unwavering. 

“I want to help you.” _I would do anything for you._

“I need your car. I have to get Alton out of here. It’s a lot to ask, I know… Luke…” Roy’s voice cracked and Lucas found himself taking his hand. He hadn’t felt Roy’s skin like this in years, but his hands were still as rough as they’d ever been. To feel them against his cheek again was something he didn’t realize he was desperately craving. However, he held back, gently squeezing it instead. I’m here. 

“There’s a certain place Alton needs to go. He has to be there on a certain day, and it’s very important that I take him. I’ll need to use your car.”

He started detailing out a plan to fabricate the stealing of Lucas’s car in order to take Alton to Florida. The car would be returned to him after the fourth, no questions asked. Lucas felt his other hand ball up into a fist.

_No._

It’s only when Roy visibly reacted that Lucas realized he’d said it out loud. 

“No?”

Roy stepped back, his gaze hard now. It hurt him, and for that Lucas hated himself, but he wasn’t going to just stand back and watch the one he cared about most drive away from him again. Not this time. 

“I worried myself sick over you all those years, and now that I get you back, you think you can just walk away again? No. You go, I go too. Those are the rules.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

Lucas raised his chin, defiant.

“So don’t ask me. I’m coming, and you know why. Besides, you always needed me to save your ass when we were kids. I see that hasn’t changed one bit.”

The corners of Roy’s mouth turned up in a fraction of a smile. Despite the smallness of the act, Lucas could feel the warmth from where he was standing, and it comforted him.

“I missed you,” he allows himself. _Come back to me._ Roy stepped closer, until they stood inches away from each other again. Lucas’s fingers trembled, and he couldn’t tell if it was due to the alcohol or the anticipation. Perhaps it was both.

Their foreheads pressed against each other. He’d take what he could get. Roy’s hand found its way to the back of Lucas’s neck, thumb slowly tracing up and down before pressing a kiss against his forehead.

“Wish it was under better circumstances.”

“That’s okay. S’all a dream, anyhow.”

They stood together like this, quietly—not because of the sleeping child in the next room, but out of fear of the moment being lost forever. He knew the routine by now. Any minute now, Lucas would wake up and find himself back on his couch inside his empty house, and Roy would not have been there—in fact he never was there in the first place. Roy would be back at the ranch and Lucas would stay inside his lonely life and think nothing of it. These dreams were familiar to him. They’d happened semi-regularly after Roy left, and even now they still occurred from time to time.

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

“Lucas--”

“It’s just too good to be true,” he interrupts, pulling away. “I spent so many years waiting here for you to come and find me, and you never did. I’ve learned my lesson, all right? I can’t do _this_ anymore.”

_We can’t do this anymore._

Roy had said that to him the night after his parents caught them fooling around on the couch in the basement. His left eye was darkening, a bruise forming, and he winced away when Lucas tried to touch his face. _I’m leaving tomorrow. We’re moving to Reverend Meyer’s ranch. I’m sorry. This is all my fault._

Lucas remembered tucking a stray piece of hair behind Roy’s ear—to distract him from both the bruise and the realization that it was his own fault in the first place. They should have been more careful. He tried to apologize, but all Lucas’s protests about whose fault it really was got silenced by one of the last kisses Roy would ever give him. _It doesn’t matter now. It was worth it for me._

The pain in his side from when he was tossed out of the house ached, but it was nothing compared to his heart. In all the years they’d known each other, it was the only time Roy had seen him cry, and he had held him that day the same way he was holding him now, pressing tightly against him, fingers digging into his back. Never letting go. Lucas didn’t want him to. 

“I’m real,” Roy whispers now, their lips millimeters from touching. “I swear to you that I’m real. Do you believe me?”

Lucas closed the gap with his lips.

_Yes._

Their noses collided due to the lack of practice, but it was perfect nonetheless. Whenever one pulled away, the other brought them back in for more, and the two of them continued on like this, up against the wall of the hallway in Lucas’s home, tangled up in each other. No one was chasing them. No one could separate them now. 

“He has your eyes,” Lucas said finally, catching his breath.

A pause.

“You don’t have to come with us tomorrow. There’s a chance… you know…”

_That we might not come back from this._

But what did he have to go back to? All those years were spent at a job that meant nothing and a house he’d lived in all his life, time spent drinking and waiting for someone who was never going to come back. Except, he did.

“I want to come with you. And Alton. I want to help you. You know I would do anything for you, Roy.”

Privately: _I love you. I always have. Can’t you see that?_

Roy plants a soft kiss on his jawline.

“I know.”

It was more than enough.

\--

They gather food and supplies and place it in Lucas’s car the next night, sneaking Alton out and driving away in the dead of night. He drove all night, one hand on the wheel, the other holding onto Roy’s. 

“Thank you, Luke.” he says quietly as the car pulls into the parking lot of a seedy motel. They’ll set up camp there for the day and head out again under the cover of more darkness. “This means a lot to me, and Alton.”

He ran a hand through Roy’s hair, the other man leaning into his touch.

“Just glad to have you back, that’s all.”

Lucas led Alton into the hotel room to get settled while Roy grabbed their sparse belongings. The boy looked up at him curiously, but didn't say much. He was too invested in the comic books Lucas pulled out of the box in the attic for him. Roy’d protested but the glimmer of excitement in his son’s eyes won over.

“You enjoying your books, Alton?”

He nodded, eyes shining through the goggles.

“Thank you, Lucas.”

“He’d kill me for telling you this, but your dad loved this stuff when he was your age. Big fan. I’m talkin’ _huge_.”

They laugh for a moment before Alton turns to him, serious now.

“My dad cares for you. He loves you a lot. I can see it.”

He patted the top of his head. Christ, this kid reminded him so much of Roy. It was too much.

“Well, I feel the same, kid. Now go grab those comics before your dad gets to them.”

Later, Alton sits underneath a bed sheet on the floor, flashlight dancing back and forth against the wall as he devoured the book panel by panel. Roy sat anxiously on the end of their bed, watching the television. His face flashed on the screen, the words Amber Alert plastered all over the news. “Roy Tomlin is suspected in the kidnapping of Alton Meyer, eight years old, brown hair, blue eyes… if you see him or have any other information….”

Lucas watched silently alongside him, a hand placed on his shoulder. 

“Lucas.”

He feels eyes scanning his face and turns to see Roy looking back, desperate. Worried. Afraid.

_I’m here, Roy._

The trembling stopped when Lucas kissed him.

“Grab Alton. Let’s go.”

They drove off into the night as fast as the car would allow. Over the course of his lifetime, Lucas had only ever believed in a handful of things. Roy Tomlin was always one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first published fic ever go easy on me
> 
> many thanks and love to kate and cam and aino for encouraging me to write and publish this
> 
> the title is taken from "sunshine of your love" by cream (which is also a track on this great roy/lucas fanmix: http://8tracks.com/deflower-kelley/run-away-with-me)


End file.
